STOCKTON - James Okazaki spent years violating the trust of those he loved. He's willing to spend the rest of his life trying to win it back.

Reconciliation begins with love, and he knows it.

Okazaki was scheduled to spend Christmas - his new favorite holiday - with his four children and his brother, Dennis, and his family.

What may seem routine to others holds the promise of deeper meaning and emotion for Okazaki. The highlight will be a midday dim sum meal at Stockton's China Palace Restaurant, a longtime family tradition that seemed impossible to continue at the end of 2011.

Okazaki, 46, once a successful businessman, is rebuilding his life after years of drug abuse and loss.

"Last year was pretty dark," the 46-year-old Okazaki says. "This is huge - to be reunited with my kids, even my brother. They realize that I'm doing so well. I want to show my kids my strong belief. We're celebrating the birth of Christ. That is priceless. Hope is now a reality. I am experiencing everything I ever prayed about."

It wasn't always so.

When a series of personal tragedies hit in the mid-2000s, Okazaki moved from recreational drug use to addiction.

The 2004 death of his mother hit particularly hard. It was followed by the death of his stepfather and the end of his 18-year marriage.

Okazaki was depressed and turned to crystal meth as an escape.

And that's where trust was broken. He used all of his money from a successful landscaping business to buy methamphetamine and lost everything in the process - his cars, his condominium, his family.

"I was a functioning addict," Okazaki admits. "But I had to borrow for food because I spent all my money on drugs. I burned bridges with my friends."

Everything was a hustle to get more money.

He tried several rehabilitation programs but either washed out, walked away or relapsed.

Hardest of all was the dissolution of his 18-year marriage and the lost connection - and trust - with his children.

"It was a downward spiral," Okazaki says. "I couldn't pay my bills. I had no food. It was a dark world. I was lost. I had no answers."

That's when he connected with Gravity Church in Lodi. Pastor Jason McEachron recommended he try a new ministry on the frontage road of Highway 99 just south of Armstrong Road.

"James was quiet when he arrived," remembers Sarah Ayala, a pastor and counselor at Wayside Motel, a residential outreach of Inner-City Action, a "church without walls" better known for its Thursday church services underneath Stockton's Crosstown Freeway.

"He didn't say much at the beginning. He was very distant."

Trust, or the lack of it, was the issue.

Little by little, Okazaki began to hear the encouragement he needed, and he began to see the love in action of the Rev. Frank Saldana, founder of both ministries.

"He's blossomed from being quiet and an introvert to now," Ayala says. "He has the ability to draw people. He's a great listener. He can minister to others because of what he's been through."

Okazaki has become a leader in the Inter-City Action and Wayside ministries. He's also restarted his business and has reconnected with his children: Samantha, 22; Derek, 18; Sidney, 12; and Danielle, 11.

"Samantha was instrumental in my getting on the right track," Okazaki says. "I wouldn't have made it without her."

Trust restored, the family will gather today for a unique east-west celebration of Christmas.

China Palace serves up the Cantonese version of dim sum, also known as "yum cha." It is a family-style meal served on carts.

"Christmas will have more meaning," Okazaki says, "because my mother loved this place, and because I now have a different purpose in my life."